Wednesday, February 02, 2005

And the Republican Media Whore Lifetime Achievement Award goes to...

...Newsweek.

Here is what I want to know: who is responsible for publishing this putrid rag, anyway, the goddamn Republican National Committee? Are they kidding with this crap, from the Jan. 24 issue? "(Bush) is hands-on, detail-oriented and hates 'yes' men." Yeah, that sounds about right. At least half the time, he looks so zoned out that you have to wonder if he's on drugs, he himself has admitted that he doesn't read anything, and he demoted or fired pretty much everyone in his first administration who disagreed with him about Iraq, but whatever. His buddies say he's "detail-oriented," so it must be true! We've got ourselves a scoop here, kids!

There are so many places to go with criticizing this garbage that it's hard to know where to begin. Like high school sophomores writing for their school paper, the intrepid "reporters" at Newsweek have gone straight for the really tough interviews, quoting "senior aides," Andrew Card, and Karl Rove. Just the sources you'd expect to provide an unbiased view of their boss Bush. Did they bother to interview anybody who isn't a slavish GOP partisan? Um, no. Absolutely every source quoted in this article is either explicitly described as a Republican or labeled a Bush "friend" or "confidante." At least at one time (during the misty past of the 1990s, when I was a reporter) there was a term for this kind of story: it was called a "blow job." If you did this kind of thing at the highly unremarkable local daily newspaper where I used to work, you had a tendency to get fired. Today this caliber of reporting gets you a job at the most elite media outlets in the country.

"Bush's aides and friends describe...a restless man who masters details and reads avidly, who chews over his mistakes and the failings of those around him..."

I mean, truly: what in God's name do the people at Newsweek think they're doing? What do they think their job actually is? It's not like they could be getting paid off by the Republican party, or anything, because, you know, that would be nuts.

Speaking of the payola scandal, those wacky pranksters at Newsweek were at it again in the Feb. 7 issue, assuring us that the Bush administration will no longer be paying "pundits" to shill for its various causes. Well, that's nice to know. It's also nice to have the assurance of Newsweek's fine, upstanding, and totally impartial reporters that it doesn't matter anyway, because the entire definition of journalism has changed. You know, because of all those, whatdoyoucallem, "bloggers":

"Today, it's not even clear what a 'journalist' is, or what 'covering' something means."

Hey, Newsweek, how about I spell it out for you: A "journalist" is someone who recognizes that it's unethical to write nothing but puff pieces about the powerful people and institutions he or she covers -- particularly in the face of mountains of evidence of the corruption of said people and institutions. Also, to "cover" the White House does not mean accepting its PR team's invitations to go to all kinds of swanky Washington parties, and then conveniently omitting any remotely critical views from your coverage of said White House. To "cover" a person, government institution, event, or anything else, really, means just what you'd think it means: you try, to the very best of your ability, and without being swayed by any attempts to bribe you into positive coverage, to find out what the truth is, to determine what is newsworthy, and to publish it, without embellishment or omission. That's pretty much it.

If we could do it at my college paper and at every small paper where I ever worked, the national media should be able to do it.